As historian Pierre de Coubertin reflected the past for athletic inspiration, he never dreamed he would become known as the "Father of the New Olympic Games." The Frenchman was a student of the ancient games, held between the 8th century BC and the 4th century AD, and took their name from the Panhellenic religious sanctuary of Olympia in western Greece. Coubertin established the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1894, and the first modern Olympics were held in Athens two years later.

However, when the first official games were held in 1896, modern Saudi Arabia was still 36 years away from becoming an independent nation-state.

In 1945, the Kingdom became a member of the United Nations. It took a long time to get involved in general sporting growth. However, Olympic participation seemed like a distant dream.

Many other Olympic disciplines, such as track and field, fencing, and equestrianism, took a little longer to catch on in Saudi Arabia as football's global success swept the Kingdom in the first half of the twentieth century.

The Saudi Arabian Football Federation was established in 1956 and became a FIFA member the same year. For example, Jeddah's Al-Ittihad was founded in 1927, five years before the country's independence, while Al-Ahli arrived ten years later. Al-Shabab, Al-Nassr, and Al-Hilal, three Riyadh clubs, were formed in 1947, 1955, and 1957, respectively.

Saudi athletes did not participate until the Munich Games of 1972 when the Saudi National Olympic Committee (NOC) was formed.

Since then, Saudi Arabia has sent athletes to 11 of the 12 Summer Games, except for Moscow 1980, when the Kingdom entered a US-led boycott of the Soviet Union in response to Russia's invasion of Afghanistan six months before. Despite their remarkable successes in the 1980s, 1990s, and beyond, generations of Saudi footballers had failed to qualify for the Olympics until recently.

After three AFC Asian Cup victories in 1984, 1988, and 1996, and five World Cup appearances in 1994, 1998, 2002, 2006, and 2018, the Saudi under-23s team qualified for the Tokyo Games, which were originally scheduled for this summer but were postponed due to the pandemic.

Hadi Soua'an Al-Somaily won silver in the 110-meter hurdles and Khaled Al-Eid won bronze in the individual show jumping event in the Kingdom's seventh Olympic Games in Sydney 2000.

A Saudi athlete did not appear on the podium again until 2012, when equestrians Ramzy Al-Duhaim, Abdullah Al-Saud, Abdullah Sharbatly, and Kamal Bahamdan won bronze in the showjumping team event. More importantly, the London 2012 Olympics were the first senior games to feature female Saudi competitors.

Because of changes to the Olympic charter, every competing nation now has to have at least one female athlete. Dalma Rushdi Malhas, 18, of Saudi Arabia, won bronze in the individual show jumping event at the 2010 Youth Olympics in Singapore. Her win was the only one for the Kingdom.

Sarah Attar in the 800 metres and judo participant Wojdan Shaherkani in the above 78kg event made history as the first Saudi female competitors at the senior Olympics two years later in London. Although there was a real desire on the Saudi side to send female athletes to London, there was also a desire within the NOC not to offend the cultural and social changes of the late 2010s and early 2020s in a still conservative Kingdom.

There were last-minute fears that Shaherkani would withdraw if she was not allowed to compete in her hijab. The IOC gave in after being pressured by the Saudi NOC to include women in the games. “Any transition would be met with opposition. The Ministry of Sports and the Saudi Sport for All Federation is all about diversity and inclusion,” said Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki Al-Faisal, the Kingdom's first sports minister, in an interview with Arab News.

Saudi Arabia sent seven male and four female athletes to the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

Attar participated in her second Olympics, this time in the women's marathon instead of the 800-meter dash. Kariman Abuljadayel competed in the first heat of the women's 100 metres.

On the men's side, Abdullah Abkar Mohammed competed in the 100 metres, while Tariq Ahmed Al-Amri and Mukhlid Mahil Al-Otaibi competed in the 5,000 metres. Atallah Al-Anazi competed in shooting, Sultan Al-Dawoodi in the discus, and Sulaiman Hamad in judo.

Joud Fahmy and Lubna Al-Omair competed in judo and fencing, respectively, more than double the number of female competitors from the London Games. Unfortunately, there will be no medals for Saudi Arabia in Rio.

Saudi Arabia has made several bids to host international sports tournaments since launching its ambitious Vision 2030 strategy to diversify other than oil.

With the establishment of new male and female sports federations with monthly and genuine financial support from the Saudi government, more Saudi athletes will certainly qualify for the Olympics in the future.